Fence goes up around Sears campus as demolition nears
Installation of a perimeter fence around the former Sears corporate campus in Hoffman Estates began this week in preparation for the razing of 2.4 million square feet of office space to make way for a data center campus.
Parking garages and other easier-to-empty structures on the property likely will be the first to go, said Katy Hancock, vice president of community relations for Dallas-based Compass Datacenters, the 273-acre site’s new owners.
But a few months of interior clearance is expected to precede the teardowns of the larger buildings, which will proceed on a rolling basis until probably mid-2025, she added.
American Demolition of Carol Stream was selected for the project largely for its recycling of materials and ability to minimize dust and dirt blowing from the site, Hancock said.
Work will be confined to the hours between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, until the demolition is complete.
America’s dominant retailer for much of the 20th century, Sears made the Hoffman Estates campus its final Illinois headquarters between its move from the then Sears Tower in Chicago in the early ‘90s until its emergence from bankruptcy as Transformco.
The renamed company put the vacated campus on the market in early 2022 and Compass Datacenters purchased it last summer.
Planning for a data center campus on the site is continuing as the demolition of Sears’ old buildings gets underway.
Building E on the property will remain and be used for training exercises for local police and fire departments as long it is practical.
Compass Datacenters has typically developed its campuses for a single tenant each. The Hoffman Estates site is expected to follow that pattern, though a tenant has yet to be identified and announced.